


Aldnoah Christmas Carol

by Nightfall (RealmOfTan)



Category: A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens, Aldnoah.Zero (Anime)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Christmas Eve, Dreams and Nightmares, Ghosts, Happy Ending, Haunting, Horror, Inspired by A Christmas Carol, Interpersonal Development, Intrapersonal Development, Other, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-22
Updated: 2015-12-24
Packaged: 2018-05-08 13:03:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 21,741
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5497979
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RealmOfTan/pseuds/Nightfall
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In celebration for Christmas, I present to you a mashup of Aldnoah.Zero and "A Christmas Carol" by Charles Dickens, a post-canon short story with the theme of horror.</p><p>Slaine hates Orange's visits and he hates the tedious life in prison. Once night comes - as Christmas Eve is closing in - he wakes up by a familiar voice calling for him, trying to warn him about unpleasant nightly visitors.</p><p>Let the hauntings begin.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Night between 21st and 22nd December

**Author's Note:**

> Each ghost will get their night, with the finale on 24th December.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Inspiration/mood setting music:  
> [Nox Arcana - Solstice Spirits](https://youtu.be/jcMvyYWWCp4)

According to the man sitting opposite of him it was 21st of December.

”It’s snowing outside.”

’ _I don’t care…_ ’

“Christmas Eve is only three days away.”

Silence.

“Did you celebrate Christmas on Vers?”

The gentle knocks from a chess piece being moved on the board sounded in the room. The sound was surprisingly loud. It was probably due to the dense silence inside – what he liked to call it – the glass box, which made Slaine feel like a forgotten ornament inside one of those wintery snow globes he knew were being sold all over the world at this hour. The only things that were missing were the water to drown him and the plastic pieces to fall around him to fake a gentle snowfall. It was so gruesome he could actually find it appealing, and for a moment he wished he had a snow globe to shake and admire the lifeless state of the figurines inside it.

He noticed Orange move a chess piece from the corner of his eye and he wondered why his captor still insisted on visiting him like that. Why had the man not lost interest in him yet? The tyrant never spoke during Orange’s visits in the prison. He never spoke to anyone. Slaine even wondered if his voice had died during those long months he had spent in his silent prison, not using his vocal cords more than during his moments of madness when he screamed his heart out. The guards had already lost interest in him. The entire work force had lost interest in him and simply did what they had to in order for Slaine to stay alive. Other than that they left him alone in his prison cell – which Slaine preferred above anything else.

“I don’t celebrate it,” Orange said and moved another chess piece as he played against himself while Slaine sat silent and unmoving on his designated spot opposite of the little table between them.

‘ _Just leave_ ,’ Slaine thought and kept his eyes locked on the chains between his cuffed hands, which lay limp in his lap.

“Is your cell cold?” he heard Orange continue and Slaine breathed a silent sigh.

‘ _Why are you so persistent? Just go! Leave me alone!_ ’

“I’ve heard that you huddle up beneath the duvet a lot.”

‘ _Shut up!_ ’

“If you want us to increase the heat, that can be arrang-“

Slaine could not take it anymore and he kicked the table leg to his right irritably, hard enough some of the chess pieces fell over on the board. Orange looked at him with that blank expression which irritated Slaine to no ends. The former tyrant glared back at the soldier who had captured him, with piercing eyes.

‘ _I hate you. Why won’t you understand that?_ ’

Orange looked at him for a short moment, clearly thinking far more than he gave the appearance of, and then stood up from his chair in defeat. Slaine had won this time; Orange understood he could not gain anything from spending further minutes with the obstinately silent tyrant. This kind of win was far more gratifying than winning at chess – even if Slaine had never played it with his capturer. He had refused to touch the pieces and Orange had begun to play alone while talking away about useless little things Slaine had no interest in. All he waited for was the decision of executing him but he knew that would never come.

“I understand,” Orange said as he looked at Slaine when guards came to show Slaine back to his cell. “I will come back on Christmas Eve to wish you a merry Christmas.”

The man always said that; he would always let Slaine know when he would come back to make a new try of speaking to him. Wednesdays were the usual days Orange would visit him but to Slaine Wednesdays could have been whichever other day of the week since he had no sense of time anymore. He had been locked up for several months now that each day felt the same – like he stood still in time with nothing happening around him. Be it Wednesdays or Fridays, Mondays or Sundays – those were all the same for him.

Orange exited the room first while guards were holding Slaine beneath his cuffed arms. When Slaine had seen his captor disappear through a guarded steel door he was shown back to his cell, got his cuffs removed and was then left alone. He had thrown a glance toward the tiny barred window on his way to the cell and he had seen nothing. The snow must have fallen heavily since the entire window had been covered up with it; it had been pitch black.

Slaine curled up beneath the duvet and closed his eyes and nuzzled the pillow. His father’s talisman slipped out from beneath his heavenly blue t-shirt and he reached up toward it to hide it inside his hand.

‘ _Dad…_ ’ he thought and frowned. He held tightly onto it to find some kind of stability in his predictable environment which was so foreseeable it slowly drove him mad. He breathed out a heavy and frustrated sigh, heard someone walk down the corridor and announce the evening’s dinner. Slaine did not answer – as usual – and heard that someone place the tray of food on the table, which was bolted to the floor, through the gap in the barred cell door. When Slaine refused the food, the prisoner was left alone again.

To make time slip by even if he had nothing to wait for, Slaine decided to sleep. He had no appetite at all after each of Orange’s visits and he did not know why, and so he fell asleep – forgetting about the food and entered the land of dreams.

***

“ _My lord… Wake up_ ,” he heard a nostalgic voice say and Slaine slowly opened his eyes. “ _Wake up, my lord_.”

That voice was so nostalgic despite the hollowness of it that Slaine was suddenly brusquely woken up by his curiosity to know who this unknown person was, and quickly he sat up in his bed and pulled the duvet off. He stared at a pale man who should have had dark hair, but even his hair and clothes had lost their saturation. The man wore a uniform of a Baron from Vers and had gruesome wounds across his torso and face. They looked like burn wounds and part of his uniform had been burnt away. His face had an open wound which did not bleed and the blood on his uniform was still glistening in the weak light from the corridor outside of the cell. Something that resembled smog emitted from him all around as his image slowly flickered, like he was a heatless flame floating in thin air – and yet he was covered in heavy but silent chains which swayed along with his slow flickering and floating motion.

The more Slaine looked at him the more he felt his skin crawl. He realized the man standing before him should have been dead several months ago.

And he was…

Slaine emitted a scream of horror as the being stared at him and Slaine hurriedly crawled up against the wall behind the bed’s headboard. He pushed his back against the cold stone wall as hard as possible, wishing he could fall through it in order to run from the dead man before him.

The being’s slightly concerned expression turned into panic and it flew up to him so fast Slaine had no time to react until the being’s face was right before his. There was no smell of rot or blood, nor the smell of burnt or the man’s nostalgic scent he had had while he had still been alive. Slaine went completely silent for a while, trying to understand what had happened as the familiar but horrifying face floated in front of him, and when he looked down toward the bed he saw the man’s body go right through the bed.

“ _Please, listen to me_ ,” the being said with great worry and reached out a hand to touch Slaine’s shoulder, but Slaine shook his head in utter panic and screamed once again.

The former tyrant threw himself down from the bed and landed painfully on the floor. He hurried up from the floor and ran up to the bars to yank at them, scream for the guards to help him.

“SOMEONE!” he yelled. “PLEASE! OPEN THE DOOR!”

There was no reaction in the corridor outside.

“ _My lord! Please! It is me: Harklight! Calm down!_ ” the ghost of Harklight said behind him with a hollow voice. Slaine heard the ghost’s voice get closer and he turned around quickly. “ _Please, listen to me. I have something important to announce._ ”

“Get away from me!” Slaine yelled frightened. The crawling on his skin intensified. “You’re dead! You’re supposed to be dead!”

“ _And I am, my lord_ ,” the ghost of Harklight said urgently. “ _I am dead, but I am here to warn you._ ”

“Warn me?!” Slaine yelled and took steps to his left to get away from the floating being. “You’re not real! You can’t be real!”

“ _But my lord_ …” the ghost of Harklight said with a suddenly saddened expression, and it stopped hovering closer to Slaine. “ _I have not moved on since I can’t_ ,” it then continued. “ _There is something I have to do before that_.”

Slaine’s panic began to slowly weaken and his legs began to tremble underneath him. He stared at his former subordinate who had been a good friend and an excellent soldier. To see what had become of him was sickening; the man was dead because of Slaine. It was a reality he could not hide from – a reality he could not flee from – because now the result of Slaine’s crimes stood before him like an unpleasant revelation. It had been easier to forget when there had not been an image to haunt him, but now that image stood right before him. Slaine could not deny it.

“H-Harklight…?” Slaine said quietly with a trembling breath. “I’m sorry…”

The former tyrant watched the ghost of his subordinate shake its head with a slight smile on its pale lips.

“ _You owe me no apology, my lord_ ,” the ghost said. “ _Please do understand I am dead because I chose to die in battle while fighting for what I believe in and not because you asked me to._ ”

Slaine frowned. He had to admit it felt like a relief to hear the ghost of Harklight say that, but even then the guilt continued to eat at him.

“Then why are you here?” Slaine asked confused. “Are you here to haunt me?”

The ghost of Harklight shook its head once again.

“ _No, my lord. I am here to warn you about visitors_ ,” the ghost said and a sudden chill ran down Slaine’s spine. The former tyrant shivered and for a moment his teeth clattered. The face of the being turned into unease.

“V-visitors…?” Slaine asked and began to grow worried. “Is someone else haunting me for my crimes?”

He could not help but to ask. A sudden feeling of being watched struck him and fear shook him all the way to the core. Would those whose death Slaine was responsible for come back to demand and claim revenge? Would they be familiar or unfamiliar faces – or both? Who and how many would they be? What would they say and not say?

‘ _How angry will they be…?_ ’ he thought and shivered again.

“ _Do not worry too much, my lord_ ,” the ghost of Harklight said silently. “ _But I have to warn you that you have to change your ways, my lord. You have to stop waiting for death and not treat Kaizuka Inaho as your enemy, or else you will carry longer and heavier chains than me in the afterlife – pull and tug at them and feel them holding you back and exhaust you_. _You are an angry man, my lord, and that anger and bitterness will turn into heavy chains after you die if you stay like this._ ”

Slaine’s mind came to a halt and he could only stare at the ghost of his former subordinate. He watched the heavy chains around his body. They certainly looked heavy now that Slaine took a closer look at them.

“ _The afterlife is a beautiful place, my lord, but only for those who have lived humbly. You are a humble being, my lord. Deep down I know you are, and thus I want to ask you to change your ways._ ”

“Change my ways?” Slaine asked and lowered his eyes. “Do I even deserve a beautiful afterlife for what I have don-?“

“ _But you do, my lord!_ ” Harklight interrupted him and yelled with urgency as if to stop Slaine from finishing a horrible line of words – words that should not be spoken. Slaine jumped from the ghost’s sudden yell and went silent. The ghost of Harklight looked at him with a painful longing. “ _Live through the punishment you have gotten and forgive and forget your rivalry with Kaizuka Inaho, and then seek the rightful afterlife you deserve._ ”

Slaine had to admit that deep down he wished his afterlife to be much more pleasant than the reality he had lived, and still lived in. Harklight’s ghost was telling him to change his ways in the life he had now in order to earn a comfortable afterlife. Did that mean Slaine still had a chance? Could he still right his wrongdoings by such a simple way as to accept his punishment and release his grudge toward the young man who had fought against him and captured him?

“ _I did not get the chance but I beg of you to take it, my lord_ ,” Harklight’s ghost said quietly with a melancholy tone. “ _Three ghosts will be visiting you after me. The first one – Ghost of Christmas Past – will come at midnight tonight._ ”

“T-three ghost…?” Slaine asked and took a step back once again. “Ghost of Christmas Past?”

Harklight’s ghost nodded and looked concerned.

“ _The second – Ghost of Christmas Present – will come tomorrow evening. The third…_ ” Harklight’s ghost went silent for a while. The former man pressed his lips into a thin line as if he was uncomfortable of continuing.

“And t-the third…?” Slaine asked slightly distressed and began trembling from the being’s troubled look.

‘ _Is the third ghost frightening…?_ ’ he thought and held his breath, waiting for Harklight’s ghost to continue.

The ghost of Harklight hovered silently for a while. It seemed to pain him greatly to speak about the third ghost and Slaine grew more and more worried of what this third ghost would be.

“ _My lord…_ ” Harklight’s ghost then finally said. “ _The third ghost – Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come – will arrive on the night to Christmas Eve. Let the ghosts show you and teach you; listen to their lessons. They all three have important things to give you and only you can find courage to accept their gifts that will help you change your ways._ ”

The floating image of his former subordinate began to fade. Suddenly fright grabbed a merciless hold of Slaine and prompted him to chase after the ghost. What would he do once the ghosts came to haunt him? How could he face them alone?

“Harklight!” Slaine yelled after the young man and reached out a hand toward the disappearing image. “Where will you go?”

The ghost of Harklight gave him that smile which Slaine remembered when the man had stood next to him, alive and ready to serve him with unconditional loyalty despite Slaine’s overbearing insanity; it was the smile which told Slaine the man had been his only friend and the only source of trust in the crazy turmoil they had lived in as the two worlds around them had burned in Slaine’s name.

“ _You will never see me again, my lord_ ,” the ghost of Harklight told him with his voice echoing more and more along with the fading image. ‘ _But if you change your ways and wholeheartedly believe in the gifts the ghosts will give you, you will save me from these chains as well – but only if you wish to. That is for you to decide, my lord. It is soon midnight._ ”

“What gifts!?” Slaine asked in a hurry as the last hint of the ghost’s smile disappeared. “Harklight!”

The room echoed empty. The ghost was gone. Nothing of Harklight’s presence lingered and Slaine stared at the spot in the air where the wounded ghost had hovered. Tears gathered in Slaine’s eyes as he understood the man was gone forever – taken away by the gentle cradle of passing. Did he wait for Slaine to learn the lessons and accept the gifts the ghosts would present to him? Was the man hoping for Slaine to give him salvation from the heavy chains, brought onto him by his own crimes he had committed as the living man he had been?

‘ _This has to be a dream_ ,’ Slaine thought and listened to the silence in the little cell and the area outside it. No one was there. It was completely devoid of life. Slaine’s heart was the only heart beating in the proximity and the silence made the heartbeats overpowering. The sound of his heart was the only thing accompanying him until he heard the gentle sound of a clock, and Slaine turned to look toward the clock on the wall opposite of the cell. The weak light further down the corridor lit up the hands of time just enough for Slaine to see the minute-hand was closing in on the midnight hour. The hour-hand waited patiently for its comrade to arrive to midnight alongside it, to step over to the witching hour when the ghost would arrive. They were in no hurry – moving slowly with all the time in the world at their hands. Tick tock the clock spoke softly. It was a bizarre communication between him and the hands of time now that Slaine thought about it and listened to them.

 _Not yet_ , the hands of time would tell him if they could speak. _We’re not there yet. You have to wait. We decide when it’s time._

It was a cruel joke made up by a nightmare. It had to be. It was supposed to be Christmas – a holiday Slaine had not celebrated for years but a happy holiday nonetheless. This nightmare and the waiting for a ghost made it feel more like Halloween than Christmas and Slaine could not help but to laugh quietly. He leaned his back against the bars to his cell and covered his face with his hands. It was stupid. It was silly. Madness had finally caught up with him, induced by the uneventful days which were nothing but a gray mess where day and night was only distinguishable by the lights in the corridor being turned on and off.

‘ _What am I doing? I’m crazy, that’s all_ ,’ he thought and sighed heavily in defeat and hung his head and searched for support from the cold iron bars behind him. He gripped them hard with his hands to make sure they were really there. If this was a nightmare, it was awfully vivid since he could feel the pain from his fingers tightly gripping the bars – enough to make them ache around the cold iron.

He stood up from his position against the bars and sighed with a loud sigh – releasing all the built up tension inside him from the frightened hallucination which had had the image of Harklight’s ghost. There were no such things as ghosts.

‘ _It’s just madness_ ,’ he assure himself and took the first step toward the bed while he began to feel calmer.

First step.

Second step.

Third step…

As he reached the edge of the bed and raised the duvet to pull it around him, the clock on the wall outside the cell released a horrifyingly loud ring of a solid metal cast bell of unrealistic proportions. It pierced his ears and messed up his thoughts into a jumbling mess. It made his heart react with loud and fast beats as the sudden and unpleasant surprise of the bell had frightened him. Slaine turned quickly to look at the clock on the wall. It showed the witching hour had arrived. The hands of time stood at guard on their midnight position and the loud ringing of the invisible clock tower bell kept echoing around him – engulfing him like a tidal wave set to arrive at midnight.

The room suddenly went cold and the light from further down the corridor faded into darkness and the ringing of the bell stopped. There was nothing. Only blackness and silence. Slaine heard his breaths tremble and felt his body shake from fright. The air had become so cold it crawled inside his lungs and threatened to freeze him. He pushed up against the wall next to the bed and waited and listened. There were no steps from the guards and the ticks and tocks of the clock had disappeared. He was alone in the darkness.

“H-hello…?” he said quivering. “Is someone there…?”

Only silence was his answer and he swallowed hard and listened to his frightened breaths. This could not be a mere hallucination. It could not be this real. Or could it? He had never lost his mind like that – never experienced the true horrors of the human mind – but whether it was real or not, an unpleasant trick of his mind or genuine experience, it was frightening nonetheless.

A gentle breeze of warmness reached his ankles and he looked down in the darkness. He could not see anything in the blackness but he could sense a comforting breeze in the shivering cold. Something flickered in the corner of his eye and he turned his head to look at the source. The light further down the corridor had come back and was moving toward his cell. Slowly and gently it cast a light in the darkness while its intensity grew and a white figure hovered behind it. It came closer and Slaine kept his eyes fixed at it, feeling fearful of letting it go with his sight. It moved silently but with calm and did not seem hostile at all and once is stopped outside of Slaine’s cell to look at the prisoner, Slaine could see its form.

It was clad in white and carried a metal cap – much like a candle extinguisher – in its hand – whenever it had hands. Its form and shape shifted constantly, slowly but gently it suddenly was a being with one arm, then with only one leg, in the next moment it had twenty legs and then a pair of legs and arms without a head. It had no visible outline and was constantly in a state of dissolve in the dense light.

It was a gentle light; warm and comforting and somehow nostalgic.

“A-are you … the Ghost of Christmas Past?” Slaine asked quietly while he tried to recover from the shock and horror. The being seemed to nod. “So Harklight spoke the truth? You are the first of three to haunt me?”

The being nodded once again and reached out something that was supposed to be a hand through the bars, but with it billowing the way it did, it looked like dense smoke which danced in the warm breeze – which Slaine realized emitted from the ghost.

Slaine hesitated as he stared at the ghost’s hand. What would the ghost do with him? What would it show him and teach him? Since its presence was nothing but kind Slaine swallowed hard and took a deep breath, reached out his hand toward the ghost’s. As he was about to touch it he hesitated once again and hovered his hand above it as he debated in his mind if he should trust the ghost or not. Harklight had told him to let the ghosts show and teach him and give him a gift each that would help Slaine to save his afterlife once he had faced his demise. Harklight had never told him a lie and his smile had been as genuine as when he had been alive.

‘ _I have to trust him and the ghosts…_ ’ Slaine thought and finally lowered his hand and touched the billowing ghost’s hand. It felt soft like cotton and once it had enveloped Slaine’s hand with the smoke warmth coursed through the former tyrant and the surrounding cell dissolved in a violent wind which shattered the bars and stone and concrete room and corridor. The light from the ghost blinded him and Slaine closed his eyes in a desperate attempt to protect them from the light and wind. His hair fluttered along with his clothing and the talisman around his neck bounced against his chest as it protested in its chain against the wind.

And then … calm.

“ _Daddy! Daddy! Look!_ ” he heard an excited child’s voice say and Slaine opened his eyes. “ _Dad!_ ”

In front of him Slaine saw a small boy who could not be older than ten or eleven years old. The boy was dressed in creamy white knitted sweater and wore soft brown pinstriped pants. He had a soft hue to his blond hair and had blue eyes which stared at a man who was immersed in a pile of papers and books on the desk next to which he sat. The small boy pulled at his father’s knitted sweater, begging for the man’s attention while the child wore a smile born from hope and assurance that this time the boy’s plan would work.

“Is that me?” Slaine asked the ghost next to him and looked at the billowing head of the being holding his hand. “I think I remember this, but it’s vague…”

The ghost nodded and they both turned to look at the child Slaine and his father.

“ _Dad, I drew a Christmas tree! It has all the angels and apples, and all the candles and even a star!_ ” the boy said excitedly. “ _I made it just for you, daddy!_ ”

“ _That’s pretty, Slaine_ ,” the man answered absentmindedly, not even throwing as much as a glance toward the child’s picture.

“ _Dad_ …” the boy said quietly and the smile on the boy’s lips faded. “ _Daddy… I drew you a picture_ … _Don’t you want to see it?_ ”

“ _Not now, Slaine. I’m working. I almost got the formula I’m looking for. Don’t disturb daddy when he’s working_ ,” the man answered this time with a hint of annoyance.

“I remember now…” Slaine said to the ghost as he watched the tears gather in his child self’s eyes. “My dad was just about to solve a mathematical problem concerning the power of Aldnoah and he had been immersed in trying to solve it for days. He even forgot that it was Christmas and…”

Slaine’s voice faded and it became hard to breathe. He reached up his hand to the talisman around his neck – the same talisman he could see hanging around his father’s neck as the man leaned over the papers on the desk in front of him – and tightened his grip around it. An ache awoke in his chest and he had to bite back his tears.

“… and I had to celebrate it alone,” he whispered. “I sat next to the Christmas tree which we had decorated two weeks earlier before dad got the flash of genius that would make him work through Christmas, and waited for dad to finish his work so we could open our Christmas presents together.” Slaine breathed in a deep sigh in a desperate attempt to release some of the ache in his chest. “He didn’t open his presents until two days later… Of course he knew what they contained as I had chosen the gifts for him and he had paid for them, but still…”

A tear rolled down his cheek and Slaine quickly dried it away. He had to be strong despite the loneliness weighing so much he felt like he crumbled beneath it. The reminder of how much he missed his father before he had become busy with the Aldnoah research, struck Slaine like a poisonous arrow which spread a heavy emotion inside him.

“ _But I drew you a picture…_ ” he heard his younger self cry.

“ _I will look at it later, Slaine. Let daddy work_ ,” his father scolded impatiently.

The last thing Slaine saw of his younger self before he had to close his eyes to protect them from the suddenly growing wind, was how his younger self walked over to the door to throw a last glance over his shoulder toward his father, before the boy left his father in the study. The image of the silently crying 10 year old Slaine shattered in a strong wind and the light blinded Slaine once again.

And then … calm.

“ _That sounds so much fun!_ ” he heard a beautiful voice exclaim. “ _And then what do they do after they have danced around the Christmas tree?_ ”

Slaine opened his eyes and saw a young golden haired girl and a boy who was clearly a younger Slaine. The boy was around 12 to 13 years old and wore a gentle blush on his cheeks and looked innocently curious about the girl’s excitement. A weak smile played on his lips while the girl had glittering eyes.

“ _Then they open the presents. Keep in mind different countries has different cultures and different families have different traditions on how to celebrate Christmas, but in my traditions you eat a tasty dinner, then open the Christmas presents, and then dance around the tree_ ,’ the young Slaine explained to…

“Asseylum…” Slaine whispered and stared at the kindly smiling girl who was eager to listen to Slaine explaining how he celebrated Christmas. “I remember this as well,” Slaine said to the ghost and smiled. “I have forgotten how happy I was though.”

“ _Say, Slaine. Can we celebrate Christmas? We lack proper Christmas trees but I am sure we can do something to make it feel Christmassy!_ ” the young Asseylum said happily and excitedly.

The young Slaine’s cheeks grew even more crimson and he looked excited as well.

“ _S-sure!_ ” the younger Slaine said and looked ready to assist the princess with her idea.

“ _Let us ask my grandfather! I am sure he will give us permission!_ ” the princess said and took a hold of the young Slaine’s hand to pull him along.

Slaine watched his younger self run after the princess with a warm heart. The memory was sweet and yet sorrowful. It was before his father had passed away but was not present in Slaine’s life. Asseylum had taken a liking to him after saving him from the terrifying crash after Slaine’s father had decided to move to Vers. Back then Slaine had been considered as a friend of the princess who was allowed to stay in the royal palace due to his father having such a good reputation as a scientist. While his father had been busy working Slaine had spent time with Asseylum, enjoying a somewhat carefree life.

“We celebrated an awkward Christmas that year, only Asseylum and me,” Slaine told the ghost. “My father was of course busy as always, but the kindhearted princess tried to make my loneliness less real by spending time with me. She was truly kind.”

“ _P-princess!_ ” he heard his child self yell from the end of the corridor where the children had run off. “ _W-wait for me!_ ”

“But then my father died…” Slaine said quietly. “… and I was taken away from her to be trained into a soldier…”

“ _Hurry up, Slaine!_ ” he heard the laughing voice of Asseylum yell to Slaine’s younger self.

Oh how he missed the princess. The ache in his chest grew and a second tear rolled down his cheek. Again the loneliness struck him but this time in a different way. Asseylum had been there for him back then and she had been a great source of support and joy – but now she had not appeared before him even once. The words of hers – conveyed by Orange before summer had become autumn – echoed in Slaine’s mind, of how she had wished for Orange to save Slaine from his misery. It had been such a strong impact to hear her not hate him for what he had done that Slaine had been contented for a little while before the tedious and empty life in prison had begun to pull him into a thick mud of purposeless existence.

‘ _But she never visits me. She never sends me messages. She’s not there at all anymore_ ,’ Slaine thought and the wind began to blow again along with the brightening light. He held his breath and felt the wind play with his hair and clothes. The hand enveloped by the billowing ghost’s gripped the cottony hand of the ghost’s and he wondered what the new vision would be. What other painful memories did he have to watch?

The wind seemed stronger this time and the light shone so brightly he had to cover his eyes with a hand to protect them. He gasped as the intense wind threatened to knock his breath away.

And then … calm.

He heard a sob in a room which whirred quietly from machinery. It was an awfully familiar noise which put so much ache in Slaine’s chest that he knew instantly what he would see once he opened his eyes. Carefully – ever so slowly – he opened his eyes and saw a dimly lit room. The light was of a fluorescent blue and revealed a lonely figure sitting on its knees in front of a glass wall. On the other side was liquid and a female body dressed in a skintight suit. The golden locks drifted in the weak currents inside the tank where Asseylum’s unconscious body floated while the machinery gave her life-support. On the floor, in front of the tank Slaine watched himself. The date was fresh in his mind.

“24th December, 2014…” Slaine mumbled and listened to his slightly younger self’s sobs.

“ _I’m sorry!_ ” he heard himself cry. “ _Forgive me, princess… I tried to save you. I searched for you and when I found you I was so happy…! And this was the result of my uselessness!_ ”

“This was closely after the battle on Saazbaum’s landing castle in Russia,” Slaine said to the ghost and took a step back as the memory became so vivid that his heart was about to burst. “I couldn’t save her… I was nothing but a useless boy pretending to be a hero…”

The Ghost of Christmas Past gripped Slaine’s hand tighter to prevent him from running away from the memory. It forced Slaine to watch himself cry for Asseylum and talk to her like the young boy had been struck by madness from grief.

“Right after this I lost myself,” Slaine said as he struggled to breathe from the strong emotions inside him. “I became apathetic… psychopathic… All my emotions died since all I could think about was her. No one else existed in my state of crisis and I lost my way completely for a while…”

Slaine tried to pull himself free from the ghost’s hand but it held him without giving way for his helpless sorrow and desperate attempts to flee. The grip around his hand tightened further until it hurt and the cries of his younger self echoed in his mind. His heart was sent into turmoil and it felt like he was in the same kind of crisis as his younger self. It pulled at his heartstrings, choked the air out of him as his breathing became harder, forced tears onto his cheeks and finally made him scream:

“No more! Please, show me no more!”

The Ghost of Christmas Past pulled him closer and loomed over him. The gentle air around the billowing being had disappeared and he heard an echoing voice say harshly:

“ _These are the shadows of things that have been. That they are what they are, do not blame me!_ ”

The ghost was angry.

“I can’t take it anymore!” Slaine yelled and took a hold of the metal cap it carried with his free hand. He raised it and threw it back down over the ghost, which disappeared like a candle that he had snuffed out.

The wind picked up in strength again and angrily tore at his hair and clothes and he screamed and raised his hands to protect his face from the harshness of it. The wind got so strong it tore the vision of his younger self into shreds and Slaine lost his balance. He fell against a hard surface and once he opened his eyes he was back in his cell, lying on the floor. The weak light further down the corridor shone as it always did and lit up the tick tocking timepiece on the wall. The hands of time were leisurely wandering over the numbered dial, the minute-hand in a more eager pace than the hour-hand’s barely noticeable movements. It was only one minute after midnight and everything seemed to be back to normal.

Slaine’s heart beat inside his chest like he had been running from a monster and he slowly got up from the floor. The shocking experience had left a horrible feeling inside his soul – so horrible his entire body shook. He felt sweaty despite he had not felt warm, and his breathing was irregular and deep. He hurried to curl up beneath the duvet to hide and wondered what had truly happened. Had it been a nightmare or a play of his lost mind?

‘ _Was it real?_ ’ he thought and put his arms around himself to hug himself tightly. An indescribable urge to sleep washed over him and he breathed in a deep breath. He told himself to relax – that it had simply been a nightmare and he had fallen off from the bed as he had been tussling and turning in his sleep. Slowly he began drifting away in the similar manner he did every time he was about to fall asleep. His mind and heart calmed, his emotions faded away and a comfortable unconsciousness washed over him, and he fell asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> See you tomorrow night (CET).


	2. Night between 22nd and 23rd December

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Inspiration/mood setting music:  
> [Pan's Labyrinth - Lullaby (Music Box)](https://youtu.be/47mLY8vX3L0)

The following day Slaine woke up feeling groggy. His head felt heavy from lack of sleep and a stabbing hunger made his stomach feel like turning. His throat was dry and he felt dehydrated, making him feel thirsty. The sound of steps came down from the hall and when Slaine decided to peek out from underneath the duvet he saw the lights had been turned on in the corridor; it was morning.

“Good morning,” he heard a tired guard say. The guard was probably the one who had a record of oversleeping and coming late to work. Slaine wondered if the guard had managed to get up in time today or was he tired from a brusquely awakening that morning, noticing he would be late for work if he did not hurry up from bed. “Breakfast,” the guard then said and Slaine heard the familiar clattering of the tray as it was put on the table through the opening in the bars.

Slaine did not answer the guard – as usual. He hoped the guard would hurry up and leave so Slaine could eat his breakfast in peace. To have someone watch him eat was stressing his already sensitive mind even if he knew the guards had the duty to keep an eye on him – especially after his recent attempts to commit suicide. His entire room had been emptied of everything that were considered dangerous and all he had was the bed and table which were both bolted to the floor. Then of course, he had the clothes he wore and the bed linen. Everything else that were given to him were only for borrow and he had to be constantly under surveillance while handling whatever was given to him. Even brushing his teeth was considered dangerous since he could secretly sharpen the bottom end of the toothbrush and use it as a weapon, and plastic cutlery were especially dangerous if he managed to break them; the plastic edges could be as sharp as a razor. Slaine knew from firsthand experience after a suicide attempt since he had used such improvised tools.

“Will you come out from there and eat?” the guard asked with a sigh but Slaine did not answer him.

‘ _Leave!_ ’

The guards were neither bad nor good, Slaine thought. Some were friendlier than others but since Slaine hardly spoke at all he had not gotten to know them at all and they simply left him alone when there was no need for them to interact with him. At first there had been anger and hate directed toward the prisoner – anger and hate which Slaine found were nothing but justified – but since Slaine refused to interact with the personnel the anger and hate had turned into ambivalence, and then into indifference.

“Hey… I can’t leave you with the tray, you know that. If you want to eat something then come out of there,” the guard complained with a somewhat childish tone.

The guard was about the same age as Saline but they were so very different in nature. Slaine got the feeling this guard had had a warm upbringing with loving parents and plenty of friends, considering how carefree the guard’s nature were. Slaine on the other hand – despite being the same age – was on guard and defensive as well as mature in a warped way. He had been forced to grow up much faster than was considered normal – so fast that his attachments to others were awfully distorted and dysfunctional. People were dangerous, false and treacherous by nature. Only one person had been able to come close to his heart throughout his short lifetime and that was a person he considered to be a saint.

Asseylum.

The attachment he had to her was distorted and dominated his life even today. Only she knew his pain and only she had been willing to help him carry it. Even if Harklight and Lemrina had been those closest to him during his time as a tyrant they had not been as close as the princess – who was now shouldering the heavy duty of an empress. They could not understand him. No one could. How could someone understand a child who was willing to singlehandedly crush mountains for one single person and tear down the heavens in their name and carry that destructive blame? How could anyone understand a child who used that kind of unconditional love and loyalty to actually do such horrible acts while justifying it by calling it self-sacrifice to fulfill a loved one’s dream?

That was nothing but pure insanity.

‘ _I’ve been so destructive…_ ’ Slaine thought and sighed.

“Troyard…!” the guard whined in the corridor and Slaine sighed a second time.

The former tyrant got up from the bed. The slightly chilly air in the cell attacked his skin as the duvet fell off him and his skin prickled. He looked at the tray with food and felt the hunger tear on his insides but he could not eat with the guard guarding him from attempts to do something harmful toward himself.

‘ _I won’t cut myself or stab myself… Can’t you just leave me alone?_ ’ Slaine thought and reached a hand to the tray and with a gentle push on it he signaled to the guard he would not eat.

The guard stared at him with an uncomprehending look on his young and handsome face. Slaine stared back at him, silently screaming at the guard he did not like the man’s presence one bit.

‘ _Go…_ ’

“You really should eat something. You look pale,” the guard said but Slaine kept staring at him without answering. “You will starve if you continue like this,” the guard continued.

‘ _I don’t mind…_ ’ Slaine thought and kept staring at him tiredly, begging for the man to leave him alone despite the intense hunger thrashing around inside his stomach.

In the end the guard sighed and picked up the tray from the table and left. Slaine returned to his bed and disappeared beneath the duvet once again to try and go back to sleep.

‘ _Starve…_ ’ he thought and sighed and let his mind go empty for a while. Then he remembered the nightmare from last night. He remembered Harklight’s ghost and the Ghost of Christmas Past. The painful memories came back to him which he had seen in his dreadfully vivid nightmare. Slaine wondered why he dreamt such horrible things. Was his punishment not enough already as it was? He was locked up and isolated from the world with no place to call home. He was not welcome anywhere and had been disowned by both Earth and Vers and he was slowly growing mad in his little prison.

‘ _Is this not enough?_ ’ he thought and hugged himself tightly as his chest ache. ‘ _I’m so pathetic… I shouldn’t have a right to feel sorry for myself._ ”

Thoughts about what the nightmare could have meant drifted through his mind. He pondered on what the ghost in his nightmare had wanted to tell him or teach him. Harklight’s ghost had spoken about Slaine who should accept his punishment and forgive and forget the rivalry between him and Orange. What had the dream from last night, where he had traveled through his memories, to do with being a prisoner and rival? Slaine did not understand it at all.

‘ _It was just a nightmare. Dreams don’t have a meaning_ ,’ he thought to himself. He wondered if the Ghost of Christmas Present would arrive that night as Harklight’s ghost had said it would. Slaine scoffed and buried his face against his pillow. ‘ _Ridiculous…_ ’

The entire day was spent on drifting back and forth between reality and sleep. Slaine had been hungry for so long his stomach had gone numb by the time the lights were switched off in the corridor outside – indicating that night had arrived. He lay still in his bed, still hiding beneath the duvet. The gentle ticks and tocks of the clock reminded him about the presence of time and Slaine listened to the soft sound. It felt comforting in a way to have some kind of noise around him once night came. It would have felt awfully lonely otherwise in the deafening silence.

Slaine began to breathe in rhythm with the ticks and tocks. Three seconds to inhale and three seconds to exhale. One second of pause and then three seconds to inhale and three seconds to exhale again. It was relaxing and a comfortable way to spend time as he waited to fall asleep again. How many hours did he sleep per day? He was certain he slept more hours than he was awake and figured it had to do with his deteriorating mind. It was more pleasant to be unconsciously drifting through time than be awake and watch and wait for it to pass with no goal ahead or nothing to look forward to.

He kept following the soft ticks and tocks of the timepiece on the wall outside his cell and relaxed more for each breath he took. Soon he would fall asleep again and soon it would be a new day where he would repeat today’s pattern. His mind was slowly emptied as sleep beckoned him deeper into its world and he kept breathing according to the rhythm of the ticks and tocks.

Three seconds to inhale and three seconds to exhale. One second of pause and then three seconds to inhale and three seconds to exhale again. One second of pause and then three seconds to inhale and three seconds to exhale again.

Three seconds to inhale and three seconds to-

Slaine opened his eyes with a start and held his breath. The ticks and tocks had gone quiet. There was no comfortable rhythm to follow and the silence was deafening. The room went cold again – just like last night and terror put its claws around him.

‘ _The Ghost of Christmas Present?_ ’ he thought and released trembling breaths. He did not dare to look out from beneath the duvet since he was terrified of seeing what waited for him outside it. He wanted to see if the clock was still there but he dared not to. His heart beat harder in his chest and cold sweat covered his skin. His entire body went cold.

A soft sound suddenly drifted to him from further down the corridor. It sounded like a kind wintery lullaby played on a windup music box. The melody was new to him and he listened to it as it replaced the soft noise from the clock which had gone quiet. Curiosity struck him and he sat up in his bed and dared to slowly pull the duvet from his head to look out into the corridor. The cell was cold and dark but a welcoming light shone at the end of the corridor. It looked warmer than the artificial lights that usually accompanied him in the night, like the light was reflected on pure gold. Slaine threw a glance toward the clock on the wall outside the prison bars. It had stopped on 11:00 PM.

A jolly laugh was heard from the source of the light. It was a heartfelt laugh only the kindest of souls could create and curiosity made Slaine slowly get up from his bed. He walked up to the bars and took a hold of them and leaned his head against them to try and look toward the source of the golden light where the jolly laugh echoed. Who was laughing? None of the guards had ever laughed as kindly as that. Slaine pushed his cheek against the bars so hard his cheekbone ached but he did not pay it any mind; he was far too curious about the light and laugh. The smell of food drifted his way and he breathed in the scent. It made his mouth water and his stomach was reminded by his hunger again. He relaxed against the bars and closed his eyes to enjoy the scent of the food which was far out of his reach. At least he could enjoy it like that – right?

Without warning he felt himself slip through the bars. He fell through them like he had been a ghost himself and he stumbled as he clumsily tried to stay on his legs. He was about to fall face first against the opposite wall beneath the frozen and silent clock but managed to save himself from a painful accident by catching himself with his arms against the wall. Shock coursed through him and he looked around. His gaze fell on the empty cell where he had been locked up the moment before. He was free.

Confusion of what to do next washed over him and he looked toward both ends of the corridor. One end was completely dark and ominous while the other still beckoned him with the golden light, jolly laugh and the wonderful smell of food. The decision was easy and so he slowly and carefully walked toward the door from where the golden light shone – the door which usually lead to the room with the huge “glass box” where Orange would meet him once a week. He walked carefully and was prepared for a sudden surprise, ready to defend himself or run from whatever would come his way.

Nothing happened.

The feeling of warmth increased the closer Slaine came the door. He reached the slightly open door without anything changing in his surroundings. No guards came to force him back inside the cell and no monsters or ghosts attacked him. He put a hand against the door but hesitated. What would wait on the other side? More painful memories? More horrors similar to last night’s? As he was about to pull his hand away from the door a jolly voice said from inside the room:

“ _Come in and know me better, man_.”

Slaine took a frightened step back and stared at the door which stood completely still while the light shone from behind it. The jolly laugh was heard again, probably laughing at his pathetic reaction. It did not sound scornful or callous. Quite the opposite. It sounded like the one who was laughing had thought of his reaction as genuinely humorous with no ill intent in mind.

“ _No need to be afraid. Step inside, Slaine Troyard_.”

Hesitantly Slaine reached out his hand once again and slowly pushed the door open. The cold and barren room he was used to seeing behind that door was nothing of the sort. The entire room was warm and decorated in hundreds of Christmas candles and ornaments. The floor was covered by an enormous red carpet and the cold stony walls were hidden behind large tapestries with embroidered wintery landscapes and pictures of happy Christmas sceneries. Inside the large “glass box” stood a table filled with food of every kind Slaine could imagine and the door into it was decorated with deep red curtains which were held open by golden tie-backs with classic tassels. A dark red carpet welcomed him inside if he wished to enter it.

The door from where Orange would enter stood wide open but it was dark outside and no guards stood next to it. In a corner stood the largest Christmas tree Slaine had ever seen in his life with mountains of presents beneath it. It was so tall it would have hit the ceiling before the first branch of it had fitted inside the room, and Slaine almost fell backwards as he looked up toward the roof which was so high it was not visible. The tree was decorated from the first branch and all the way up to the top where he expected to see a star or angel decoration, but instead he saw a large man sitting there as if his size and weight did not bother the Christmas tree at all. The man was so large he looked like a giant.

“ _Welcome!_ ” the man said joyfully and raised a golden goblet into the air. The man was dressed in a green coat with fur covered collar and cuffs, cuffed green trousers and brown leather boots. Over his belly ran a black leather belt and he had a large brown frizzy hair and beard.

“Santa?” Slaine asked surprised and the man laughed once again and swayed on the branch of the Christmas tree, resting his hand on his belly. The man’s cheeks were red either from cold or from drinking too much wine. Slaine could not tell.

“ _You are dearly mistaken_ ,” the man laughed. “ _I am the Ghost of Christmas Present_.”

‘ _The second ghost!_ ’ Slaine thought and instinctively turned around to escape through the door through which he had entered the room. The door was slammed shut by an invisible force right before him and Slaine ran right into it, not being able to stop his running beforehand, and the door rattled violently from the impact.

The jolly laugh echoed behind him and Slaine breathed heavily. His breath’s bounced back at him from the door in front of him. The tip of his nose touched the door and the sounds of his breaths danced around him. His ears began ringing from adrenaline.

“ _You have never seen the likes of me before?_ ” the ghost laughed from on top of the Christmas tree.

Slaine tried to calm his breathing and answered quietly:

“No…” Slaine slowly turned around and pushed his back against the door while feeling cornered and looked up at the giant but friendly man on top of the tree.

“ _Have you never walked forth with one of my brothers?_ ” the jolly ghost asked.

Slaine thought quickly on what the ghost could mean. Slaine had never met anyone like the man before. Not that he could ever remember.

“I don’t t-think that I have,” he said as he could not come up to a conclusion and looked at the jolly ghost. “Do you have many brothers?”

The ghost laughed again.

“ _More than 2000!_ ” the ghost answered merrily. “ _2016 to be exact_.”

“I… I see…” Slaine answered awkwardly and slowly raised his hand to the door handle to try and open it without the ghost noticing. It was locked.

‘ _Damn it!_ ’ he thought and then noticed something that made his blood turn into ice.

“I see y-you’re carrying a scabbard … with no sword in it,” Slaine said and felt cold sweaty. Had the ghost given his sword to someone else who was in the room? Did the ghost plan on attacking him? Slaine quickly looked around in the room but saw no other presence.

The ghost looked surprised and turned his eyes toward the scabbard and raised it to stare at it. Then he looked around the room with a theatrical manner.

“ _Oh. Indeed! You are right_ ,” he said. Then a happy smile spread on his lips again. “ _Peace on Earth and Vers gives me no reason to carry a sword_.”

‘ _Don’t play with me!_ ’ Slaine thought frustrated.

“Because I’m locked up in prison?” Slaine spat poisonously as his pride had been hurt, and the jolly ghost’s smile faded slightly.

“ _I find your statement to be true. Once the great Slaine Saazbaum Troyard fell I could put by sword on the shelf, and because you are in here I can be jolly like this. How does that make you feel?_ ”

The ghost had suddenly turned less friendly and Slaine could not find words to counter the ghost’s blameful remark. He could only glare back at it while the last ember of his pride hissed angrily – reminding Slaine it still existed inside him even if it was weak and pathetic.

He wanted to return to his cell but he knew he was not permitted to until the ghost had shown him whatever it had come to show him. He lowered his head and stared at the red carpet in front of his black shoes which had come along with the blue clothes. A blush of humiliation played on his cheeks and he did not want to show it to the ghost.

“Spirit…” Slaine said quietly. “Conduct me where you wish and then let me be.”

He felt the ghost’s gaze rest on him and Slaine lowered his head further to ensure his face was hidden from it. Then that jolly laugh burst out of the ghost’s mouth again, resounding in the warm and welcoming room. The ghost was so amused his laugh was louder than before and much more heartfelt that even Slaine got a weak smile on his lips. The ghost’s laugh was contagious.

“ _If you are so eager to come with me that you are willing to deny the delicious food I have prepared for you, then touch my robe and I shall take you on an adventure_ ,” he heard the ghost laugh and Slaine looked up at it on the top of the tree.

The ghost lowered the belt toward the foot of the Christmas tree and it seemed to never end. Slaine took the steps he needed to walk up to the tree and wait for the end of the belt to reach him. As it finally dangled in front of him he looked at the ghost and hesitated.

“Can I taste your food once we come back?” Slaine asked and the ghost laughed again.

“ _Of course! It is prepared only for you_ ,” it laughed and Slaine smiled and reached out his hand to the belt hanging in front of him.

His fingers closed around it and golden glitter emitted from where he touched it. For a moment he thought he was breaking the belt but when golden glitter rained down upon him he looked up at the ghost. The ghost was sprinkling golden dust around the former tyrant from the goblet in its hand and the golden glitter landed on Slaine’s shoulders and hair. A couple of grains landed on his nose and Slaine shook his head to shake them off as they tickled him. The sprinkled gold fluttered around him and the jolly laugh of the ghost echoed lightheartedly when Slaine’s surroundings began to spin like he stood inside of a hurricane.

And then a wintery scene opened before him.

Slaine stared at a snow covered street in a busy downtown area. People walked around him with shopping bags in their hands and scarves pulled up high over their faces to protect them from the cold. Teenagers laughed somewhere further down the street and stores were occupied with people who were out in the last minute to buy Christmas presents to their loved ones. Snow fell quietly around him but the cold was not noticeable. His feet were embedded in snow as he stood on an untouched part of the sidewalk where no one had walked on the snow.

The world was so huge and open. There were so many people around him. The noises were so unfamiliar. The smell and colors were overwhelming him and he slowly began to tremble. He had not been in such an open world for a long time and he was not used to having crowds of people around him. Slowly he began to feel afraid. What if the people recognized him? What if they would gather around him and pull him to shreds? The world was too big and he was too small.

“ _No need to be afraid_ ,” he heard the jolly voice say next to him and Slaine hurriedly looked up at the ghost who was at least two meters tall. Slaine noticed he was still holding the belt which had now become shorter, and he quickly grabbed the ghost’s coat with desperate and trembling hands and begged:

“Please! Take me back to the prison. If these people see me they will-!”

The ghost laughed again and shook its head. It put a large hand on Slaine’s head to pat him surprisingly gently despite its size, and said:

“ _They cannot see you or me. Now come, come! Let me show you the joy of present Christmas!_ ”

“B-but why?” Slaine asked and hurried to follow the jolly giant ghost whose steps were longer than his that Slaine had to run after it.

The ghost did not answer him. Slaine followed it best he could and stepped out of the way for people walking toward him. The ghost did not mind and walked right through them and those people got an unpleased expression, as if they had felt something walk through them. Slaine tried to avoid it but suddenly a business woman walked right through him from behind with hurrying steps. She was speaking with someone on the phone which she pressed against her ear and did not seem to notice Slaine’s presence at all. Slaine on the other hand let out a scream of shock as the encounter had been so sudden and had come out of nowhere, and he lost his balance as he slipped on the icy ground and fell on his behind. The amused and jolly laughter reached his ears and a large hand was offered to him.

“ _Careful now_ ,” the ghost said smiling and chuckled warmly. “ _We are the ghosts now, not they._ ”

Slaine blushed and silently reached out his hand to take a hold of the ghost’s, and it pulled him up from the ground.

They walked past several different situations which all peaked Slaine’s curiosity. There was a bakery with its display window filled with delicious looking cakes, each and one of them decorated with Christmassy frosting and details. The scent of the newly baked buns and breads drifted around it and for a moment Slaine wished he could step inside. People walked in and out through the door – those who came out carried boxes and bags filled with pastries and bread.

“Merry Christmas!” someone yelled from inside the bakery when the door opened and a couple walked out with a Christmassy box – probably containing a cake – in the young man’s hand.

“Merry Christmas to you too! Thank you!” the young woman answered to the person inside the bakery.

Slaine followed the ghost and they passed a park where kids were yelling, laughing and screaming as they threw snowballs at each other. They had built two walls – much like castle walls – out of snow and hid behind them while playing in the snow, throwing snow back and forth with no one to keep track of who was winning. It was an innocent play and Slaine smiled watching them.

Further down the street – in an intersection – a church rang its bells and its doors stood open, welcoming people inside. The sound was similar to the ringing Slaine had heard once the Ghost of Christmas Past had visited him the night before. Some people entered the church and Slaine threw a glance in through the doors to see a beautiful interior so grand his breath was nearly taken away. Just a couple of steps away from the church doors people stood in a line outside of a building which looked like any other concrete building Slaine and the ghost had walked past. They seemed to wait for their turn for food and Slaine realized these people were either homeless or poor. Men and women stood behind a counter and greeted each person with a kind smile and voice, offering them food. Some entered the building while others bowed gratefully and disappeared with the food down the street. It was a shelter.

Slaine stopped to look at the scene for a while. The kindness that played out before him was something he had not seen before. He had always been protected by his father and then by the royal family on Vers; he knew poverty existed but it was something he had never seen.

“ _See something you enjoy?_ ” the ghost asked next to him and Slaine was woken up from the dazed state and looked up at it.

“I wouldn’t say I enjoy it, but it’s beautiful and kind,” he said and turned to look at the soup being poured into bowls.

“ _Kindness is everywhere. Humans are more kind than evil_ ,” the ghost said.

Slaine frowned. His chest ached again.

“I don’t think I agree,” he whispered and raised a hand to squeeze the t-shirt above his chest.

‘ _I’m nothing but a monster…_ ’

The ghost did not answer him but instead kept walking. Slaine watched at the soup kitchen and shelter a couple of breaths longer before he hurried after the ghost. They passed a choir of young people singing Christmas carols, some holding up lanterns with candles inside while others held songbooks to those around them. They all sang joyfully and the Christmas atmosphere became so palpable Slaine could not ignore it; he felt it too.

“-have just finished. I am on my way home,” Slaine heard a familiar voice say from in front of him and he turned his attention to look up at yet another person talking on the phone.

“Orange!” he exclaimed surprised and stared at the young man walk down the snowy street with a cellphone pushed against his ear.

Slaine hurried to step aside as Orange was about to walk through him, and then the former tyrant hurried after the young man – eager to watch him and listen to what he said. He listened to him speak on the phone to someone who seemed to be arguing with him over something but Orange answered calmly. Slaine noticed his captor carried a shopping bag in the other hand which seemed to contain something light but big.

“I have to work,” Orange replied to the one on the other side of the phone. “I know. I’m sorry. I will be home on Christmas afternoon and join you and the others.”

“ _I believe you know this person_ ,” the ghost said who had appeared next to Slaine.

“He’s the one who put me in the prison after fighting against me for two years,” Slaine answered and watched his rival’s breaths turn into mist in the cold air. “I have only seen him in uniforms and never in civilian clothes.”

Orange was dressed in a black coat and wore black leather gloves. He had a brown knitted scarf around his neck and a knitted hat of the same color warmed his head. The young man wore regular trousers and winter boots on his feet which seemed to work well with slippery surfaces as he strode down the street like nothing while Slaine struggled at times to not slip.

“ _Even hardworking soldiers have a private side to them_ ,” the ghost said and Slaine realized just how long he had been among soldiers from Vers.

No one had worn civilian clothes in the landing castles. It had always been suits and uniforms, royal dresses and other formal wear. Slaine had difficulties of understanding that Orange was not a soldier all the time, that he had a time when he would put the suit or uniform on the shelf and walk dressed in the clothes of his own choosing. The brunet’s personality shone through and Slaine suddenly realized the man was a person and not a soldier, rival or enemy. It was a strange revelation since that was all the young man had been for the former tyrant. Always fighting him bravely – like a soldier. Always challenging him confidently – like a rival. Always persistently pushing him back – like an enemy.

Orange walked down the streets and Slaine followed him keenly, and the ghost followed the prisoner without a word. Orange walked up to the entrance door to a building and entered an entrance code on the numbered panel. The door opened and he stepped inside, and Slaine followed. There was no elevator and the staircase seemed to have been forgotten by the landlord. Confusion washed over Slaine and he wondered why Orange was in a place like that.

They walked up to the third floor and Orange unlocked an apartment door and stepped inside. It was a bright apartment furnished with gentle and soft colors and decorated with Christmas ornaments. As Orange was removing his boots a woman came striding out of the living room. She was dressed in a sweatshirt and matching trousers.

“Let me come inside before you scold me,” Orange said like he had read the woman’s mind.

‘ _Who is she…?_ ’ Slaine thought. Something was familiar with the dark-haired woman who looked older than Orange.

“There’s no waiting when I’m upset, Nao!” the woman said. “Why do you have to work on Christmas Eve of all days? Everyone else is taking the day off to have a party.”

“I told you I simply have to. I am sorry about it, but this is something I can’t leave to rest. It is not a matter of simple paperwork,” Orange answered and placed his boots neatly on the shoe rack, removed his outerwear and entered the apartment’s kitchen. Slaine followed. “I bought the gifts you asked for,” the young man then said and placed the shopping bag onto the table in the kitchen.

The woman sighed heavily and shook her head.

“Sometimes I don’t get you, Nao,” she said defeated and walked up to the table with the gifts Orange had bought.

Slaine stepped aside and found a comfortable corner where he was certain he would not be in the way. The ghost did not care though and stood in the middle of the kitchen and occupied a large area of it. Orange began cooking while the woman began wrapping the gifts, which turned out to be wool scarves with matching hats and gloves. Slaine listened to them bicker in a very peculiar way. It was an argument no adult would start or join. They did not sound like lovers or friends either. To Slaine’s understanding their history must have gone far back in time since they seemed to know each other well.

“I don’t celebrate Christmas, you know that, Yuki-nee,” Orange answered after the woman had complained about him being boring.

“For once in your life just join me in forgotten traditions and celebrate with me and our friends,” the woman answered.

“Like you did when our parents were alive?” Orange asked and Slaine felt like a lightning struck him hiding in the corner.

They were siblings. That was why Slaine recognized the woman; she had the same eyes and facial features as Orange but more expressive ones. Furthermore, their parents were not present. Slaine’s curiosity grew and he took a step forward from the corner to listen.

“I know you don’t remember them or relate to them in any way,” Orange’s sister said. “But they were good parents and we had a lot of fun during Christmas each year.”

“I am sure you did,” the young man answered.

“Their parents died so long ago Orange can’t remember them…” Slaine said and looked at the ghost. “This is real, right?”

The ghost chuckled joyfully.

“ _Yes, this is happening right now_ ,” the ghost answered.

“Can you tell me how they died?” Slaine asked and the ghost laughed this time.

“ _Why, are you a curious fellow!_ ” it said. “ _Do you not think that is something you should ask him for yourself?_ ”

“How can I?” Slaine said frustrated. “We have never had a conversation that has opened up for such topics.”

The answer the ghost gave him made Slaine hold his breath:

“ _And whose fault is that?_ ” Slaine stared at the ghost whose expression had turned serious. “ _I have a feeling this man is very talkative once he is given the chance. Do you not agree?_ ”

Slaine thought back to the times Orange visited him in the prison. Each time he had tried to speak to Slaine and when the former tyrant had refused to answer the young man had begun to speak about trivial matters like he was holding a monologue. Slaine had never talked back except that one time when he had lost control and yelled at Orange for saving him. That was the only mutual communication they had had ever since Slaine became a prisoner.

“I…” Slaine said and tried to find an excuse to divert the blame away from him – but there was none. The blame was entirely his.

Orange had suddenly become much more human for Slaine – so human Slaine did not know what to think about him. The hate he felt was still strong due to their rivalry past but now a somewhat forgiving feeling lingered in his heart. To see the world in absolute truths would lead to deluded interpretations of reality. To be too stubborn about things was everything but productive and Slaine slowly came to the realization that maybe he had been too stubborn about not looking at Orange in any other light than that of an enemy and rival. He had been so deluded to think Orange was nothing but a soldier and an enemy. Slaine had not even paid it a single thought that maybe Orange was a person as well who was not ruled by a uniform every hour of the day – that he too had a life with things that mattered to him as well as problems, just like any other person in the world.

“Nao… I have to ask you – are you working because of the money?” Orange’s sister suddenly asked as the siblings had been occupied with their respective tasks. “I know we have it tight right now in the financial part but-“

“It is not for the money,” Orange answered, interrupting the woman while he stirred the content inside a pot boiling on the stove. “Even if I don’t celebrate Christmas it is still an important holiday for many people. My work involves someone who has no one to wish them merry Christmas.”

The woman named Yuki looked up at the young man with surprise and her stubbornly frowning eyes slowly grew softer. A smile spread on her lips and she looked kindly at her brother.

“Let me guess,” she said. “There is no salary for that work?”

Slaine saw Orange nod without looking at his sister. The former tyrant felt his body slowly grow weak and he leaned his back against the wall in the corner and slid down onto the floor. He stared at the back of his former enemy and heard his last words from the day before yesterday ring in his ears:

“ _I will come back on Christmas Eve to wish you a merry Christmas_.”

“Please…” Slaine whispered to the ghost and felt tears in his eyes as his chest tightened horribly after hearing the kindness his enemy expressed toward him. “Take me away from here…”

The jolly laugh did not follow his beg. The end of the ghost’s belt dangled in front of Slaine but he could not divert his eyes from Orange’s back. The former tyrant slowly raised his hand to take a hold of the end of the ghost’s belt and once he grabbed it golden glitter began to flow from the belt. The Ghost of Christmas Present sprinkled the glittering gold over Slaine from its goblet and the image of Orange and his sister became a blur and began to spin around like a hurricane.

Slaine closed his teary eyes and took a deep breath, and before long the supporting wall behind him disappeared and he fell onto his back. He stared up at the familiar ceiling which never ended – which reached as far high as the sky. The sparkling Christmas tree glittered in the corner of his eye and the wonderful smell of food reached his nostrils.

He could not get up. He kept staring up at the room’s ceiling somewhere far above him and felt tears trickle down his temples. The kindness he had witnessed being expressed to a cruel man like himself took his strength away. How could anyone be so kind toward a tyrant? Did Orange not understand the horrors Slaine had done or was he simply strong enough to look past that? The ghost stood next to him and watched him with a strict look in its eyes. Slaine suddenly realized the ghost had grown older during their time wandering in the city. Its beard had grown grey and its hair had been thinned out. Deeper wrinkles decorated its face and its skin had turned paler. Slaine heard it say:

“ _My life on this globe if very brief. It ends tonight at midnight. The time is drawing near_.”

The voice of the previously jolly ghost was low and dark. Slaine looked at it and they stared at each other for a little while. The former tyrant did not know what to say but the ghost clearly waited for words from him. Slaine sighed and tilted his head to the side and stared at the hem of the ghost’s green coat but his blood ran cold the moment he saw spindly fingers hiding underneath it.

“I see s-something strange…!” Slaine said and hurriedly sat up without releasing the slender fingers with his eyes which looked so gruesome a chill ran down his spine.

The ghost did not answer but took a step back. On the spot where it had stood was two severely emaciated children who looked barely human in the animalistic position. They squatted and pulled at the ghost’s coat while they glared at Slaine with hateful eyes, and the former tyrant got up on his feet and backed away. The children looked horrifying like they had come back to life from the dead.

“Monster!” one of them yelled frightened. It was a girl slightly older than the other child. She clung to the ghost’s robe.

“Evil, evil monster!” the other yelled angrily, who was a small boy.

Slaine took another step back and felt his skin crawl while his heart began beating frightened in his chest. Every insulting word the children yelled were truthful – Slaine knew that, and yet their words hurt like a whip lashing across Slaine’s soul.

“ _Look_ ,” the ghost demanded the moment when Slaine turned away as the sight of the angry emaciated children was too horrifying to watch. When the former tyrant did not obey the ghost’s intimidating hollow command echoed in the room so loud the Christmas decorations shook on the walls: “ _Look!_ ”

Slaine hurried to look at the ghost and then at the children. He trembled and listened to the children scream and hiss at him to disappear or go away, kill himself or die.

“I tried…!” Slaine said desperately to the emaciated girl who yelled at him to die. “I really tried!”

“ _Silence!_ ” the ghost yelled and Slaine’s voice was lost. The ghost watched him for a couple of seconds to make sure Slaine was obedient, and then continued with the strict but now calmer voice: “ _These children are born from man. The boy’s name is Ignorance, and the girl’s name is Want. Beware them both_.”

Slaine looked up at the ghost and put his arms around himself. Suddenly he was freezing.

“But they speak the truth! I should die and disappear since that is the least I can do for the world. I have done nothing but murder and spread grief in my attempt to claim two worlds!” he said desperately and the anger in the ghost’s eyes flared.

“ _Do not dare flatter yourself to such degree!_ ” it yelled and the walls shook once again. Slaine felt himself shrink from horror as he listened to the ghost. “ _The world is recuperating from your crimes and you saw that tonight! Only you linger in the past like an ignorant child claiming to be a monster and want death in order to escape it! How dare you believe you are powerful enough of a monster to destroy the world’s joy and kindness!? I have never heard such foolish arrogance and stupidity in one breath!_ ”

Slaine shook so horribly from fright he could barely stand. Tears streamed down his face as great confusion tore inside him, threatening to shatter everything he thought he were. He stared at the ghost without being able to release it with his gaze and as he tried to speak nothing but a whimper escaped him.

A hollow cry echoed in the room and Slaine saw the ghost press its hand against its chest. A bell rang in the room so loud Slaine had to push his hands over his ears and he saw the ghost slowly begin to wither away. The bell rang again and the ghost’s jolly laugh began to resound in the room. Slaine stared at it with horror, not understanding what was going on as it collapsed onto the floor and continued laughing while it slowly turned into a corpse.

“B-but the children!” Slaine yelled and watched the two children grin at him. He took a step back and when the boy leapt toward him he turned into an adult man with a knife in its hand. The girl leapt toward him as well and laughed a horrifying laugh, grabbing Slaine’s talisman while looking at him with disgustingly seductive eyes.

“Why won’t you let me grant you your wish, Mr. Monster?” she giggled and Slaine pushed her away with a yelp.

“Everybody hates you anyway. You have no one who cares if you die,” the man said and grinned even wider while he walked closer to Slaine with the knife ready. “Just-“ he began.

“-die,” the woman finished.

“NO!” Slaine yelled and pushed them out of his way.

He ran toward the door which he had come through when he had met the Ghost of Christmas Present. The man and woman chased him and Slaine hurriedly pulled up the door and continued running through the cold corridor and leaving the warmth behind, toward his cell. He prayed he would be able to slip through the bars just like last time and that the man and woman could not chase him inside. The crazy laughter of the madmen chasing him bounced around in the stone corridor and Slaine ran as fast as his legs would carry him. This was what he was petrified of; people finding him and chasing him down to get revenge for what he had done to them. He was not brave enough to let them kill him. He wanted to decide how to die without anyone putting their hands on him in any way. He wanted to end his own life if he was to die.

“Come, come, Troyard!” he heard the woman beckon him with a high pitched laughter.

Slaine reached the bars and raised his hands against them. They were solid. Terror crawled down his spine as he could not enter his own cell. The cell door was locked and he looked up at the man and woman running toward him with menacing smiles on their lips, ready to murder him.

“No, no, no, no!” Slaine cried desperately and tried to push himself through the bars. “PLEASE! I’M SO SORRY!”

“You didn’t listen to begs of forgiveness!” the man yelled and Slaine shook his head.

“I’m not a monster!” he yelled back at them. “Not anymore! Give me a chance!”

A hand grabbed his throat and he was turned around and pushed against the bars, forcing him to face the man and woman. They glared at him with gleaming eyes of hungry wolves.

“Tell me why anyone would care about giving you a second chance?” the woman asked with a poisonous voice while Slaine sobbed and tried to pull the man’s hand away from his throat.

“B-because…” he gasped while being choked. “Someone has already … forgiven me! I’m n-not a monster … in their eyes!”

The support from the bars disappeared behind him and he fell through them. The man’s hand slipped from his throat as Slaine fell backwards through the bars and onto the floor. He coughed and slowly raised himself onto his knees and looked up at the man and woman on the other side of the bars. They glared at him and began to slowly dissolve. The golden light from the end of the corridor changed into the usual artificial light and once the silhouettes of the man and woman had faded away Slaine heard the familiar ticks and tocks of the clock softly remind him that time was again flowing. The hands of time stood on guard on the midnight hour.

Everything was back to normal.

Slaine rubbed his throat where the murderous man had choked him and felt greatly confused of the night’s happenings. From the night beginning so joyfully and so suddenly turn into pure madness left room for perplexing thoughts to play in Slaine’s mind. What did the ghost from tonight try to teach him? What gift had been given to him? He could not understand it. He had seen a city preparing itself to celebrate Christmas and he had seen Orange’s human side without his former rival knowing about Slaine watching him. He had learned about Orange having an older sister with whom he lived. Orange could not remember his late parents and he was thinking about greeting Slaine on Christmas Eve simply because he was kind enough to do so. Selfless and kind as well as forgiving. Was that the true nature of the man Slaine had seen as his enemy until tonight? Had he been ignorant of not seeing Orange as anything more but an enemy soldier all this time?

Tears kept flowing down his cheeks as he wondered what to do with himself. Ignorance and Want… Had he chased them away?

“ _Only you linger in the past like an ignorant child claiming to be a monster and want death in order to escape it!_ ” the ghost had yelled to him in anger.

‘ _I don’t want to die…_ ’ Slaine thought as he realized he had had the chance to die in the hands of Ignorance and Want. ‘ _And I believe I deserve a second chance and so does my enemies. If they are kind enough to forgive me, then shouldn’t I be the same instead of linger in the past?_ ’

Slaine sighed and dried his tears. He got up from the floor and looked out into the corridor. He could hear one of the night shift guards talk merrily about something from the room where the large “glass box” stood.

“A nightmare?” Slaine whispered.

But he had not woken up from a sleep just now. He had been awake the entire time. How could it be a nightmare if he had not been sleeping? He could not explain it why the guards had not noticed anything about him running around in the corridor screaming for his life, and he could not explain how he had been able to fall through the cold iron bars of his cell. He could not explain anything at all.

‘ _What is happening…?_ ’ he thought trembling and sighed to walk over to his bed and lie down. ‘ _What is going on?_ ’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> See you tomorrow night (CET).


	3. Night between 23rd and 24th December

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for a heavy topic in this last chapter.
> 
> Inspiration/mood setting music:  
> [Alice Madness Returns Soundtrack - Radcliffe's Fate](https://youtu.be/Jm4KpYqsufA)

“Ugh…”

A horrible pain ached in his stomach and Slaine woke up. He was so hungry and thirsty his body had gone into shock; he trembled even when he was completely relaxed and had difficulties of calming the weakly constricting muscles. The beating of his heart was thick and heavy like it was tired, and the pulse felt different from what he was used to. It felt weak and light. His clothes and the bed linen were wet from cold sweat and his brain felt numb.

This time he could not ignore the hunger and he had to eat whether he liked to have a guard watching him or not. Two days had gone since he had eaten something and the days before that he had only eaten a couple of sandwiches and nothing more. To maintain an appetite while living under the circumstances of an isolated prisoner was difficult. Slaine was the kind of person who could not eat properly when feeling stressed out or was not feeling well. Food was the last thing he thought about in those situations.

He peaked out from underneath the duvet to look into the corridor which was not lit up yet. Was it still early in the morning? Voices drifted toward his cell by guards having a discussion further down the corridor and the ticks and tocks of the clock took over during the pauses between the different voices. The hands of time showed 05:30 AM. No one would try to wake him up until seven in the morning and he could not bear the hunger pains until then. He had to get up and ask for an early breakfast – most preferably something liquid rather than solid food.

Suddenly he remembered the ghost from last night. The Ghost of Christmas Present. It had been so jolly and friendly and had had a feast prepared for Slaine – but he had not had time to taste the food at all. Then again, if it was only a dream or a trick of Slaine’s maddening mind it would not have done him any good to eat an imaginary feast anyway. The visit of the ghost had been an eye-opener though, whether it was a trick of the mind or not.

‘ _Ignorance and Want…_ ’ Slaine thought and sighed heavily. The ghost had taught him about those two children and Slaine feared them. The shock of meeting them had made an impact which Slaine could not ignore. He did not want death anymore; he was not ignorant enough to wish for something as foolish and frightening as that, and thus he had to eat.

The duvet slowly slipped down from his back as he raised himself up from the bed. Slowly but steadily he worked himself to stand up and his legs trembled beneath him as they struggled to carry his weight. The regret of not eating properly for many days hit him as he noticed how weak he had become, and with the support from the wall he walked to the bars separating him from the world outside of his cell. The strength it took for him to move to the bars made him feel out of breath. His throat was too dry to speak and his vocal folds felt weak. He had no way to contact the guards since he could not speak, and he had no objects inside his cell to knock against the bars.

Except…

Slaine took a hold of the talisman hanging around his neck and began knocking its back against the bars. First he did so weakly and the knock was quiet and high pitched, but once frustration bubbled up because of the weak sound not reaching the guards, he gritted his teeth and slammed the talisman against the bars. He did not care if the talisman was damaged as long as the sound alarmed the guards. His life meant more to him than his father’s jewelry.

After a couple of knocks the discussion between the guards came to a pause. Steps were heard from the end of the corridor and Slaine wished they would hurry up. His knees shook beneath him and his breaths slowly turned into gasps. A silhouette of a guard came into his view but Slaine had no time to look up at them. His knees gave way beneath him and his body went frighteningly limp. His hands released the bars without listening to his desperate command to keep holding onto them and he collapsed onto the floor.

Muffled and jumbled sounds crawled into his ears as the guard yelled for help and the lock to his cell was opened. Someone pushed their fingers against his throat to feel his pulse and he heard someone say something about calling for the doctor. Steps echoed all around him and metallic clatter tickled his ears. Hands took a hold of him and suddenly he felt like he was floating in midair, before he was placed onto an uncomfortable bed and was taken away from the prison cell.

He wondered if the people handling him understood he was conscious. Their voices spoke to each other like they thought he could not hear them and excluded him entirely from whatever they were discussing so urgently. A flash of light blinded him – once on each eye – and his right hand got an unpleasant sting before something cold began to flow into him. His t-shirt was cut open and he felt something be stuck to his chest and a beeping began to echo next to him.

‘ _What are they doing?_ ’ he thought and wished he could command his body and speak. His deep breaths echoed in his ears and were completely automated; he could not control them to use his breath to speak. His eyelids were heavy; he could not open them to see. ‘ _Am I dying?_ ’ he thought and surprisingly could not find strength to panic. ‘ _Was I too late to change my mind, or was the ghost too late to teach me?_ ’ He was so exhausted he could not even find strength to be afraid and felt apathetic at the thought of death. It did not matter to him in that exhausted moment if he lived or died, and it comforted him. He was grateful he was not afraid.

Time passed much slower than he found comfortable. A clock was ticking somewhere close by which he noticed once the room went quiet that its ticks and tocks could be heard along with the mechanical beeps. It sounded so slow it annoyed Slaine. He wished someone would take the clock down from the wall and throw it out; he was tired of clocks and time.

Someone was sitting next to him but he did not know who that was. It was probably a guard keeping an eye on him. No one was supposed to die alone and since Slaine had no one to be there to hold his hand a guard was probably ordered to give him at least that much respect and stay with him in case he would breathe his last breath.

‘ _I’m sorry_ ,’ Slaine thought and wished he could voice those words to the guard.

Time kept passing and Slaine drifted back and forth between being awake and unconscious. At one point he hazily opened his eyes and stared at the cursed clock on the wall opposite of the hospital bed he was lying in. In the right corner of his eye stood a metallic pole with a bag of liquid hanging from it, dripping the fluid into a tube which Slaine understood was connected to his right hand. To his left a figure sat with a book in their hand. That was as much visual stimuli as he could take before he closed his eyes again.

***

A loud gasp echoed in the room and Slaine sat up with a start. His eyes were wide open and he looked around in the dark room feeling a great unease coiling around in his guts like a snake. The guard sitting next to him had fallen asleep and seemed not to have woken up from Slaine’s sudden life signs. It was the young guard who had offered Slaine breakfast the day before. Or was it the day before yesterday?

‘ _What date is it?_ ’ he thought and felt disoriented timewise. He remembered the doctor had a calendar hanging on the wall from all the times Slaine had been dragged into the tedious meetings with healthcare professionals after his intentional and accidental self-harming episodes. As he looked at the calendar he saw the date was still 23rd December. How many hours had he been in the room? Why was he still alive, and more importantly why was he feeling so energetic all of a sudden?

There were nothing to bind him to the bed and so he slowly got up from the bed, ripped the IV away from his left hand and did the same for the EKG sensors on his chest and limbs, and turned his eyes to the clock on the wall. It was soon midnight and the date would turn from 23rd of December to 24th December, 2016. He would soon celebrate his first Christmas in prison of all the Christmases yet to come as a prisoner.

‘ _What happened to me?_ ’ he thought and walked around the bed to the foot end of it to raise the patient record from its designated file folder attached to the bed. He read the handwritten hieroglyphs he barely could understand. Why did all doctors always have such horrible handwriting, he wondered? His father – though he had been a scientist and not a medical doctor – had had a horrible handwriting as well. As Slaine read the patient record he could barely make out the sentences describing his condition:

High fever.

Malnutrition.

Dehydration.

Cardiac arres-

Slaine dropped the patient record like it threatened to infect him with something deadly and backed away from it where it landed on the floor next to the bed. He bumped into the cabinet in front of the wall behind him and was surprised by the sudden stop. He froze and raised his hand to his chest. The strong heart was still beating.

‘ _Did I die without knowing about it?_ ’ he thought horrified. ‘ _Did they bring me back to life?_ ’

The shock was absolute. His heart had stopped that day but now it was beating strong in his chest again. Was that even possible? Should he move around or lie in bed? Where was the doctor? He had to ask her since he did not know what the best thing to do would be.

‘ _How could I die without noticing?_ ’ he thought. That was the most terrifying thought he had had in his entire life. Was death so easy? There had been no warnings or time to prepare for it. How could something so profound be so sudden that he had not noticed it at all? Slaine thought he had been asleep this entire time even if he had been aware during his waken hours his condition had been critical. The thought that death could be so easy and unexpected that it could slip past unnoticed for the one dying, was terrorizing.

He threw a glance at the clock again and wondered if the last ghost would arrive at midnight. Two ghosts of Christmas had already visited him just as the ghost of Harklight had warned him. The third was yet to make its visit and Slaine felt the uneasiness coil around inside him once again. What kind of ghost would it be? The first had showed him loneliness, the second had shown him ignorance and want, and the third would show him…?

‘ _Death…?_ ’

Could it be that simple and predictable, as well as fitting considering what Slaine had been through? There was no time for him to prepare for the arrival of the third ghost since the long minute-hand was soon to stand on guard with its comrade – the hour-hand – once again. Instead he breathed out a deep sigh and waited while listening to the clock and expected it to announce the ghost’s arrival just like the other two times. He closed his eyes and resigned himself to the hands of time’s torture and counted the seconds until the witching hour.

Tick tock…

Tick and tock…

Tick tock, and tick tick tock.

The sounds of the clock began suddenly turn irregular and then became faster. It was time. Slaine opened his eyes and looked up at the clock which was spinning out of control. He turned to look at the calendar and the numbers on it flipped past so fast they were a blur. Time was moving. It was moving forward in such speed it felt like the room around him changed. The furniture were still the same but shifted slightly like they had been moved throughout the time that slipped him by so rapidly. Shadows of people flashed before him and the lights flicked on and off so fast his eyes found difficulties to adjust to the different brightness and darkness. His breaths slowly grew into trembling ones and he squeezed his hands into fists out of nervousness of what was to come.

The guard who had been sleeping on the chair had disappeared and time began to slow down as if it had finally caught up with itself. The bed where Slaine had been lying was occupied again by a familiar person and Slaine understood who it was. No one else would lie in that bed here in the isolated building that made up his new home except him. The hair of his other self grew rapidly longer until it lay scattered around his head like a pale halo. His arms were thin and his cheeks were hollow. The skin of Slaine’s other self had a yellow hue and he looked so much older.

Slaine wondered what date it was now and turned to look at the calendar again. It showed 24th December in the year 2019. The old looking Slaine who lay on the hospital bed was only 21 years old, and yet he looked like he had aged at least ten years. The room was empty and had a dim light. The heart monitor next to him had been turned off and the IV had been taken away. Slaine watched his older self – whose breaths were deep rattles – lie comfortably on the bed. He had been wrapped in a duvet and his head was gently supported by pillows. No guard sat next to him. No doctor was there to keep an eye on him. He was considered a lost cause and death was inevitable. Somewhere on the line the personnel had stopped regarding him with respect.

But ... no one was supposed to die alone...

“Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come…” Slaine whispered with a tremble as he stared at his older self. “I welcome you and yet you are the one I want to face the least. Is this what you are here to show me; my dying future?” he asked and waited.

A shadow moved beneath the hospital bed on which Slaine’s dying self lay. Slaine looked at it and saw it crawl over to his own shadow. Gravely and silently it moved and spread a sense of gloom and mystery. Slaine’s trembling breaths got sharp and terrified as he watched his own shadow warp into something else. It looked like a cloaked being.

‘ _The Grim Reaper?_ ’ he thought and released a yelp the moment the shadow suddenly began to rise from the floor. It got taller and Slaine’s knees trembled so desperately he had to lean against the cabinet behind him for support. The shadow finally stood tall before him and he stared at it with a vague and uncertain terror. Slaine knew that somewhere beneath the hood were eyes staring back at him.

“Spirit…” Slaine gasped and felt so small in front of the dark shrouded figure which loomed over him. “Please show me why you are here…”

The figure slowly floated into the air before it dove against Slaine with such a sudden move that Slaine could only scream from horror. It entered him through his chest and before Slaine had had time to think what was going on he noticed the shadow emerge from the chest of his older self on the bed like smoke billowing from a gentle fire. The smoke got the form of the cloaked ghost and it stood next to the dying Slaine.

“What are you going to do?” Slaine wondered out loud with great nervousness and distress began to take form.

The ghost reached out a gangly hand toward the dying Slaine and disappeared beneath the older Slaine’s hand. It raised the dying man’s hand, but it was not the flesh it lifted; the dying Slaine’s hand rested still on the bed. What the ghost raised was a billowing and transparent hand clad in chains. It was Slaine’s soul. The dying Slaine’s rattling gasp became weaker.

“Are you going to take me away?” Slaine asked and stared at the ghost.

No, it was not the ghost itself that would take him away. It was simply a metaphor for the real Grim Reaper. The ghost simply took the form of it since Slaine feared it. Had the Grim Reaper been trying to lift Slaine’s soul earlier when his heart had gone into arrest, but had been stopped by the doctor?

As Slaine had understood the ghost’s role the ghost reached out both its arms and let them fall through the dying Slaine. Then it began to raise them up from beneath the dying young man and Slaine shook his head.

“No…” he whispered and felt panic grow inside him. “No! Stop! Don’t lift him!” he yelled and ran toward the bed to stop the ghost. “Please, spirit! Stop it!”

The ghost did not obey him. Instead it kept raising its arms and once they caught hold of the dying Slaine’s soul the transparent billowing form of Slaine’s soul was slowly becoming visible. The chains that emerged over the soul’s form were thicker and heavier than the chains Slaine could remember surrounded Harklight’s ghost. With horror he stared at the scene as his soul was raised from his dying self and the gasps the body made before the last string between it and the soul was detached were so hollow and loud Slaine collapsed to his knees. The clattering of chains echoed in the room and the body on the bed released its last long and soft gasp as it was emptied of air. Slaine’s future self was dead.

The ghost circled around the bed and Slaine looked up at it as the first tears rolled down his cheeks. In the ghost’s arms lay his soul, forever wrapped in heavy chains. The soul was unconscious and hung limp in the spindly arms.

“This is what will happen in three years from now?” Slaine asked with his voice shaking. “No one will care if I pass away?”

Time was both a wonderful and horrible thing. Those who spent it wisely would experience time healing their wounds while those who created their own gashes by misspending time would experience themselves be forgotten. The late older Slaine had spent it unwisely. He had been insisting on pushing people away which had resulted in him dying alone and forgotten.

Loneliness…

Ignorance and want…

They all resulted in him dying alone. He was slowly beginning to understand the lessons from the three ghosts.

“I don’t want to end up like him,” Slaine said trembling and dried his chin from the tears that had gathered there after their short wanders down his cheeks. “I have learned my lesson.”

The words he spoke seemed to anger the ghost as it released Slaine’s soul and it hit the floor with a loud noise and the chains around the soul rattled aggressively. The ghost then stepped over the soul toward the crying Slaine, who backed away frightened. His back hit the wall and a sudden cold wrapped itself around him. A wind played with his hair and snow fell around him. He stared at the ghost that raised its hand to point at something behind Slaine, and Slaine slowly turned around to see a black snow-covered iron cross behind his back.

A loud scream echoed in what now was a snow-covered forest and Slaine crawled away from the cross on all four, pathetically escaping the symbol of peaceful rest. The ghost kept pointing at it and Slaine tried to calm his racing heart as he stopped and turned around to look at the cross from a distance.

“What is that?” he asked with a voice which barely sounded like his own.

The ghost prompted him to look at it by pointing at it with its spindly shadowy finger and Slaine breathed in the cold air deeply to calm himself. Then slowly, on unsteady legs, he got up from the snowy ground and took hesitant steps toward it. He realized it was a grave.

“Is this mine?” he asked the ghost and he released a desperate whimper as he understood the ghost’s silence.

It was his grave. The black iron cross was all that decorated the desolate forest area where his grave was. It was hidden from people and stood alone, forgotten with no flowers or candles to mark the grave with mourn and remembrance. Slaine knew the ghost would not take him away from this place until he had followed its command and taken a closer look at the iron cross, and so – while silently crying – he walked over to it and brushed the snow away from its surface. Only two dates decorated it:

* _11 January 1998_  
✝ _24 December 2019_

“I am buried in a nameless grave which is hidden from the world…” Slaine whispered and fell onto his knees again and covered his face with his hands. He broke down into a cry.

It hurt. It was so painful. He had thought he had been ready to die and he had thought he did not care about if his grave would be marked or not. Thoughts like these had flowed through his mind until the Ghost of Christmas Present had made its visit and taught him about the roads that would lead to his death. Only now that the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come taught him the horrors of the post mortem truth did he understand how foolish he truly had been. He wanted someone to hold his hand once he was to pass away. He wanted someone to care enough about him to honor him by marking his grave with a proper stone – not a cold and black iron cross with only dates on it. He wanted someone to revisit his grave to light a candle on holidays.

‘ _Someone, please remember me!_ ’ he cried and reached a hand to the cross to rest it on it.

Whoever had chosen the spot and raised the cross had probably done so because it was a tradition and not because they cared about him. No one would ever know who lay there and no one would probably care since the grave was hidden deep in the woods.

“I have learned my lesson!” Slaine yelled and finally looked up at the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come. “Why are you torturing me like this!? I have listened to everything you three have taught me!”

The ghost lowered its hand and the ground began to rumble. The ground around Slaine began to crack and cave in and he was about to get up and run when the ground gave way. He was falling and he desperately clawed on the frozen earth to hang on for dear life, but he kept slipping. To his relief a tree root emerged from the crumbling earth and he grabbed it and squeezed it. The rumble quieted down and he gasped frightened.

“H-help!” he yelled and looked up toward the opening. The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come stood at the edge and looked down at him with the eyes hidden beneath that haunting hood. “I have learned my lesson!”

The tree root began to slip and he begged for it to hold him.

“Why are you doing this!?”

The ghost raised its hand again and pointed into the hole in the ground and Slaine obeyed and turned to look beneath him. He almost lost his grip from shock as his gaze landed on a wooden coffin deep below him. A wind blew up from beneath him and he saw flames lick the coffin from underneath it and made the bottom of the grave glow with a red hue. The coffin was a plain wooden box – much like the “glass box” where Orange met him to try and play chess with him.

Slaine had not even gotten a proper coffin.

If he fell into the grave – all the way to the bottom – he feared he would be buried alive. What did the ghost want him to do? What words did the ghost want him to say? In lack for better things to say to save him he cried out:

“The first ghost!” The ground rumbled and the wind picked up in strength. “It showed me loneliness! I learned I uphold that loneliness which only causes me pain! I have been too prideful and foolish with thinking I don’t need people around me, that I am strong enough to be alone and die alone! I now know that is not true!”

The wind began to calm down.

“The second ghost!” he cried and tried to reach up from the grave toward the third ghost. “It showed me that the world isn’t as hurt from my crimes as I thought. It taught me that I have been ignorant for thinking I was powerful enough to take away joy and kindness from the world by being a tyrant! The world has moved on and its wounds are healing and my duty is to see it heal! I was just a fool, not a monster!”

The wind calmed down further.

“And you, good spirit!” he begged. “Please see that I am not the man I was before! You taught me that I have not known what death means until now. Dying alone and not be worthy of mourn and tribute is the deepest curse I can think of and no one deserves that, not even me!” he yelled to drown out the rumble and wind. “Believe me, I don’t want to die yet! I want to greet the guards with a smile in the morning and eat my breakfast, and I want to play chess and speak with Orang-!”

The ground rumbled louder and the flames from beneath the coffin suddenly began to rise, threatening to lick Slaine’s feet and legs.

“I’M SORRY!” he yelled with tears flowing down his cheeks from terror. “Most importantly I learned that I’ve been ignorant since I couldn’t believe my enemy to be forgiving and kind, and that I have to be the same! I want to play chess with Inaho Kaizuka! Please, let me play chess with Inaho when he comes to greet me for Christmas!”

Silence. All the sounds faded away and the cold from the winter night and the heat from the flames of Hell disappeared. The wind remained but turned gentle like it was caressing him through his hair, comforting him in his desperate hour. Slaine stared at the ghost and hoped he had learned his lesson but it stood there, waiting.

“What else do you want me to say?” Slaine cried, not understanding the pause in the atmosphere.

He had told it what the ghosts had taught him. He had presented his thoughts and revelations and expressed forgiveness, humbleness and a will to live. What else could the ghost want him to-?

Slaine smiled and looked at the ghost as he realized what the ghost was waiting for. He took a trembling breath and said quietly, with each word filled with gratitude:

“Thank you… The Ghost of Christmas Past let me extinguish it out of fear. The Ghost of Christmas Present perished for my sake. And you, my good spirit… You are the one to hear my gratitude for all of your precious gifts. I promise I will be forgiving and humble, and I promise I will live until my time has come and not chase my end. Thank you!”

The ghost reached down its spindly hand to him and Slaine stared at it for a short moment before he gathered his determination and grabbed it. To his surprise he could not feel the ghost’s hand at all and with terror saw it pull out a transparent smog from Slaine’s hand. The ghost had taken a hold of his soul.

“NO!” Slaine yelled as horror and terror collided inside him. Quickly he let go of the ghost’s hand and in that instant lost the grip of the tree root. He began to fall deeper into the grave and he expected the heat from the flames to engulf him but that never happened. His frightened cry tore at his throat and-

“AAH!”

He sat up in bed with his heart racing. The clock on the wall opposite of him was ticking like it should and showed the time to be 00:25, and he turned to look at the calendar on the wall. It showed 23rd of December 2016. He was back in reality in the infirmary and he released a deep breath.

“A-are you … all right?” he heard a trembling voice ask next to him and Slaine turned his head to the guard who had been sitting next to him while reading a book. The man looked frightened.

Cold sweat had gathered on Slaine’s forehead and he wiped it away with his bare left arm. The beeping sound of a heart monitor echoed in the room and Slaine noticed his chest and limbs were attached to the machine through small sensors. He was alive. The machine gave proof to that.

“Y-yes…” he answered with a broken voice while gasping and the guard’s eyes widened. “I … had a nightmare…”

“I-I see…” the guard mumbled and looked at him with shock. “So you speak now?” The man’s voice sounded surprised rather than scornful and Slaine remembered he had not been speaking to anyone in the prison. That was why his voice was so broken.

“I guess I do,” Slaine mumbled and took a deep breath to calm his racing heart down. “Did I die?”

“What?” the guard asked surprised.

“Did my heart stop?” Slaine asked and the guard looked confused.

“N-not that I know of,” he said and Slaine hurried up to crawl over to the foot end of his bed to check his patient record. “Hey, you’re not allowed to-!” the guard began but Slaine did not listen to him. He had to know for sure.

High fever.

Malnutrition.

Dehydration.

There was nothing about cardiac arrest. Had it been a trick of the ghost as well in order to make his fear spin out of control and make its lesson about death seem more real? The guard had not been sitting next to him because he had been ordered to keep the former tyrant company in case he would die. He had been ordered to simply guard him.

With relief spreading in his chest Slaine put the file back into the file folder at the end of the bed and lay down onto the bed again. Once again he released a breath to calm down and – this time – take time to feel the relief wash over him completely. He was back in reality and he had not died. Four ghosts had been visiting him; his friend and three Christmas ghosts. Hopefully the nightmares would end.

‘ _Or were they reality?_ ’ he wondered once again but then remembered there was something he had to do. He looked to the guard who still seemed confused of what had happened.

“Can I have a candle?” Slaine asked with a hoarse voice.

“Why?” the guard asked and tilted his head in confusion.

“It’s Christmas… There are people who have passed away and who I want to honor,” Slaine said quietly. “Is it too much to ask?”

“I’m n-not sure. You want a candle now?” the guard asked and Slaine nodded. “I will have to check with the supervisor on duty.”

Slaine waited and listened to the guard speak in the alarm telephone all the guards wore. The conversation was very formal and once the guard thanked the supervisor on the other end of the line and hung up the guard gave Slaine a nod.

“You are not allowed near it but you are allowed to honor those who have passed away. The supervisor will notify my colleague who will bring you a candle,” the young man then said and Slaine nodded.

“Thank you…” he whispered with relief. “In the meantime, can I write a letter?”

The guard stared at him for a short moment – still as confused as ever over Slaine’s sudden change – and then nodded.

“S-sure…” he mumbled and got up from the chair to walk over to the doctor’s desk and bring a pen and paper to Slaine.

Slaine thanked the guard and sat up to write a letter. It was short but very meaningful. The more he wrote the more the tears gathered in his eyes now that he understood how many he had to pay his respect to and honor. The guard was quietly watching the former tyrant as he cried and wrote, but Slaine did not mind. He had to write a letter of tribute for those he would light the candle for. He wrote:

“ _For Harklight – I wish you release from your chains and to join your loved ones in the beautiful afterlife. I have forgiven myself and if I can do that, so can you. For Lemrina – I hope you are finally dancing in a breathtaking garden among colorful flowers and with a smile on your lips. For those who lost their lives in the war – the worlds are on the road to recovery and are doing so with great strength. For dad – you worked so hard and it paid fruit. I forgive you. And for my mother who I never got the pleasure to meet – thank you. I’m still here where you left me, alive. Merry Christmas to all of you_.”

Slaine released a breath which had built up inside his chest from sorrow and he raised his head to look up at the ceiling to make it easier to breathe. He had not grieved properly before. Not even when his father was buried years ago. Now all that sorrow caught up with him and it felt comforting. He was not the strong tyrant Slaine Saazbaum Troyard anymore; the strong individual who was not allowed to cry. After that night he was simply Slaine; everything he was supposed to be.

The candle arrived and Slaine asked to be allowed to light it. The candle was placed on the cabinet beneath the clock and Slaine put his letter underneath it. The candle was to burn for all of those he paid homage to in the letter, and so it was important for the candle to stand on top of the writing. Once it was lit Slaine whispered a final thank you for those he remembered with great relief, before he got back into bed to go back to sleep. Now he had something to look forward to and suddenly time was excruciatingly long for that simple reason.

In the morning he ate breakfast and got to meet the doctor. She spoke to him softly and examined him to see if he was fit for taking a shower, and Slaine answered her questions obediently like a patient should. She was surprised about how talkative he was and what made her drop her jaw was when he thanked her for her medical care and wished her a merry Christmas. She could not find words to say and Slaine was allowed to take a shower and clean himself up after all the sweating he had gone through while lying in his bed. Apparently he had gotten a high fever due to malnutrition and dehydration but he had recovered surprisingly well once he had gotten IV therapy and proper medication.

Slaine enjoyed the shower – which he had hated earlier because it made him feel so exposed. This time he did not mint to shower while guards waited in the doorway to make sure he would not attempt to self-harm himself. Slaine had no plans on doing that but he understood the worry of the guards and those who were in charge of his wellbeing and imprisonment. He was to live through his penalty after all.

He was shown back to his cell and once lunch time came he ate with a good appetite while reading a book he had asked for. It was a children’s book; a classic, and he enjoyed it like he was a young boy again.

Then the hour came. His former enemy would come to greet him. Slaine felt excited but he kept himself calm as the guards cuffed his hands and showed him down the corridor and into the “glass box” where Slaine’s captor was waiting as usual with a chess board and pieces in front of him. Slaine’s heart skipped a beat as he was eager to speak to the man but he tried his best to show only calm. He wore his usual expression he always had when he was to meet the other; not showing any kind of emotion but melancholy.

As he sat down in front of his captor the other instantly spoke:

“It’s Christmas Eve. I promised to come and wish you a merry Christmas.”

' _Yes you did_ ,' Slaine thought and remembered back to the heartwarming vision in the Kaizuka family's kitchen The Ghost of Christmas Present had shown him.

The man’s voice was as emotionless as always but soft. Now that Slaine sat there in front of the young man he felt his mind go blank. What would he say to him? The human side of his captor was shining ever so brightly now that Slaine watched him. He was nothing of an enemy anymore. That view had been erased from Slaine’s eyes. The human in front of him seemed much friendlier than he had thought and it took him off guard.

“The snow has stopped falling and it is pretty slippery outside,” the other continued to say and raised his hand to move his white chess piece, a pawn to E3. “Unfortunately the snow melted a couple of days ago and the temperatures dropped considerately and then new snow fell, which made the roads slippy.”

He truly was talkative now that Slaine listened to him and watched him move one of Slaine’s chess pieces, a pawn to D6 – once again playing for himself. It was simple chitchat but pretty comfortable. It was a great way to melt the ice and embed a foundation for further communication. Slaine wished his mind would wake up from the pause it was in. He wanted to say something to the man but he did not know what.

He saw the other’s cheeks have a soft red hue from the cold outside. It suited the younger man, Slaine thought and that thought made him stare at him for a while. To think such an innocent looking teenager had caught a demon like Slaine Saazbaum Troyard. It was so bizarre. ' _But then again, I was just a foolish teenager as well..._ ' Slaine thought. The brown haired teenager raised his hand to the eyepatch over his left eye to correct it, probably because it was in an uncomfortable position, and then he moved one of his chess pieces again, a knight to F3.

Without a word Slaine slowly raised his back from the chair’s backrest and reached out his hand toward his black queen on the board, and moved it to E7. His captor froze and stared at him during a long silence, clearly surprised despite his emotionless expression. Slaine looked at him and waited for the other’s move, and then the brown haired young man said:

“Are you moving out your queen so early?”

Slaine smiled.

“She is a marvelous warrior, don’t you think? Merry Christmas, Kaizuka Inaho.”

He watched Inaho answer his smile and reach out his hand toward his white queen to take her out onto the board as well, and both accepted the other’s friendly challenge and began to play for the first time together. Slaine looked forward to Inaho's future visits. He was sure they would get to know each other quite well over time, and until then Slaine would accept Inaho's games of chess with a smile.

At the end of this game it was Slaine who whispered:

"Checkmate."

Inaho stared at him for a while and then looked at his cornered king and Slaine's queen that stood on guard. Slaine felt like smiling like a true winner to urge the other on, and to his delight Inaho asked:

"Rematch?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Merry Christmas to all of you! ♥  
> [Rental Magica Soundtrack - Seinaru Yoru Ni](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4azhLiXDl_w)
> 
> ♪♫ The sound of bells can be heard rushing through the white snow  
> A sleigh is coming from across fields and over forests  
> Let's leave our hopes with the stars on this holy night and pray
> 
> Come, let's sing merrily tonight  
> The stars brightly shine  
> And the sound of jolly bells is coming closer  
> Holly wreaths plays as a marking sign
> 
> Come, let's sing joyfully tonight  
> The guiding star shines  
> And the march of the saints draws ever nearer  
> We'll decorate the fir tree  
> And sleep whilst our gift stockings are filled with our dreams
> 
> The end of every year marks a single special night  
> Together we can rejoice and praise this holy eve
> 
> Come, let's all sing tonight  
> Echoing across the dark and starry sky  
> Santa too sings this very song  
> To the melody of his laughing voice
> 
> Come, let's sing together tonight  
> Echoing across to the snow fallen town  
> Our singing voices reach each other and combine  
> We'll send congratulations from our hearts  
> And smile again as we pray ♪♫


End file.
